I occasionally use my state's paratransit program to get home from work when Chris has to work late or otherwise can't be there to take me home. A few weeks ago I called to schedule a ride after not having used it in a couple of years, and discovered two things: 1) that my eligibility for the program had expired and I needed to renew it; and 2) that once I got my new account number I'd be able to use a completely automated telephone system to schedule my rides rather than talking to an agent.

Now, I know a lot of people can't stand these automated systems, but I love them, for several reasons. A lot of it comes from the fact that I hate talking to strangers on the phone... I always have. It's this social awkwardness that I cover well when I have to, i.e. all day long in my job, but I welcome every opportunity to take a break from trying to sound like a normal person, and just carry on my conversations with computers, with whom I get along much better. And specific to the RIde program, the thought of never having to deal with one of their agents again was especially appealing. These people, although it's their entire job, never sound like they are particularly thrilled to be talking to you. And not only are they short and unfriendly, they often mix up details or just completely fail to do their jobs correctly. Most commonly they reverse pickup and drop-off locations, and I am left waiting for the shuttle at work while they sit outside my condo and then report me to dispatch as a no-show. There was one time, I sat waiting at work over thirty minutes past my pickup time, and called the dispatch center only to find out the reservationist I spoke to just the day before never entered my trip into the system. So you can see why I was happy for the opportunity to enter my trip requests directly into their computer system myself, bypassing these incompetent morons.

Except it seems those incompetent morons must have been who designed the new automated phone system. I tried to use it for the first time today, and for the first time ever felt like one of those people who ends up ripping their hair out trying to get through one of these systems. First, it's voice activated, which is fine as long as the people recording the prompts realize that they eventually have to shut up to give the caller a chance to say a command. Interrupting it doesn't work; it inevitably fails to recognize what was said, then spends another five minutes explaining what the options are before taking a two second breath, during which the caller must try to quickly blurt out their command before it starts talking again. There is an option to switch to touch tone only mode, so I try that instead. But now my trip time (5:00pm on April 28) is invalid; it tells me I can only schedule up to 48 hours in advance... But wait - a minute ago when I was on the voice activated system it said it had to be at least 48 hours in advance, up to 14 days! At this point I hang up and call back, staying on the voice activated system. This time I manage to get through the date and time selection, which it accepts, and next it asks where I need to be picked up. "This can be home, or one of your five favorite locations." Since I have never used the automated system before, there are no favorite locations configured, and it gives no indication how to configure them. I try saying, "favorite locations". "I'm sorry, what was that? I need to know where you are being picked up. This can be home, or one of your five favorite locations. For home, say 'home'." Yeah, thanks, moron robot woman, what do I say for a favorite location... or to create one, for that matter? I try saying the address. Same response. Fine, I'm fed up... I say "agent" to be transferred to a live agent (something which it has assured me I can say at any time during the call). "Okay, please hold while I transfer you." The line goes silent for several seconds, and then I am transferred... back to the beginning of the automated menu.

Seriously, has anyone ever managed to successfully schedule a trip through this thing?!

The worst part is, I still never managed to schedule the trip! I called back, opted not to press 9 for the automated system and instead pressed 2 for the old live call center, and sat on hold longer than I ever had before they installed the automated option, before I finally had to give up and get back to work. So much for the new system reducing call load for the live operators, eh?

Random pet peeve time. Note this has no correlation to any actual events today; it's just something that popped into my head.

I hate when people assume someone's cell phone is ringing whenever they hear a phone ring on TV, and call out, "Somebody's phone!" Especially when it's obviously not a cell phone ringing. I know there are classic phone ringtones available for cell phones, but they do not sound the same as the real thing. And if I can tell the difference, so should you.

Besides, we can all hear it; don't you think if it sounded like any of our phones, we'd check them?

There was an incident almost eight years ago, wherein a viral illness kicked my ass so hard I got out of bed one morning and promptly lost consciousness, before I even knew I was sick. I chose a great place to go down, in our bedroom in front of a large, very hard oak armoire, and messed up my face pretty good. I ended up in the emergency room getting my lip stitched back together, and something happened that had never happened to me before: the sheer pain of having a local anesthetic injected into my lip caused me to pass out again!

Ever since that day, I pass out from any kind of pain above normal everyday stuff. Once I passed out while trying to loosen up a stiff neck I had woken up with. I even passed out one day after having my wisdom teeth removed and getting food stuck in one of the holes. That was pain I didn't consciously feel, but it must have hit a raw nerve, and down I went.

So today, I went to the ear, nose and throat doctor with a somewhat high expectation that I was going to have a blood vessel in my nose cauterized. I remembered from having it done as a kid that it was not a pleasant experience, but I didn't remember it being at the level of pain that would cause me to pass out. I honestly figured most of my bad memories of the experience stemmed from the fact that I was a kid, and therefore didn't like having any amount of pain deliberately inflicted on me.

Apparently I've been deluding myself just so I wouldn't completely freak out about today's appointment.

Yes, I passed out, right there in the doctor's office, with the chemical-soaked cotton swab still up my nose. I felt it coming but was helpless to say anything before it was too late (apparently the ability to speak is first to go). The good news is that when I came to, after I figured out where the heck I was and who those strange people were standing over me and asking repeatedly if I was okay, I was told that the procedure was done and expected to be successful.

(I also broke the exam chair. They reclined it back when I went down, presumably to keep me from sliding onto the floor. Then they couldn't get the locking mechanism to budge to sit it back up again.)

That's a pretty good way to get out of the worst of the pain, don't you think? Just "sleep" through it. It does still hurt - dear God, it hurts - but it's better even now than it was a few hours ago. Still I can barely resist the urge to shove an ice cube up my nose.

I hope it turns out to be worth it, and I can finally blow my nose, treat a headache, or watch America's Funniest Home Videos without needing a blood transfusion after.

It's been a crazy day, and all I have time to write are these two random, unrelated thoughts.

My review of Lose It for the iPhone gets at least one hit every day from the search engines. What confuses me is the specific search that most often shows up in my logs... variations on the question, "Does the Lose It iPhone app really work?" What kind of question is that? Yes, it works in the sense that it adds up the calories you consume so long as you record each food you eat into the application. Actually stopping eating once you've reached your daily calorie limit is still up to you. Are you magically going to lose weight just by having the app installed on your iPhone? Don't be silly.

No one spells my name right. They never have. Everyone wants to stick an E in there (Carley), or an IE (Carlie), or start it with a K instead of a C. And you know what? I have never seen anyone with my name ever spell it any of those ways. Every single Carly I have ever met, read about, or seen on TV spells it the same way I do: C-A-R-L-Y. So why the hell can't anybody else get it right???

Well, I definitely learned something from the responses to my survey on supporting blogs. What I learned is that people don't believe in supporting them, period. People believe they have a God-given right to partake in a blogger's hard work, be entertained, informed, and intellectually stimulated by what we write, and never give anything back. How dare we expect anything in return for all of the hours we put in? "Just shut up and keep writing," is what I'm hearing.

I can't do that. I already work a full time day job for which I am underpaid. I was never looking for my blog alone to make me rich, but I've been trying to find ways for it to bring in just a little bit of money, just enough to make it worth the time and effort I put into it. Advertisers want nothing to do with me since Google says I'm worthless, and readers don't want to contribute either. So it's not worth my time, the time it takes away from my friends and my family, to continue writing here.

After all of my attempts to make an online income while still remaining honest and ethical have failed, I've discovered that the only real way to make money online is in the spam industry. Companies will pay me all kinds of money to trick my audience into giving them personal information, signing up for trial traps they can't get out of, and buying useless "revolutionary" products that are actually less effective than those that have existed for centuries. That last one is the doozy - these companies get such a kick out of scamming you that they will actually pay me more than the full price of the product, just for the satisfaction of knowing they sold you a useless piece of cloth that absorbs less liquid than a towel half its size!

Therefore, as of today, confoozled.com the blog is no more. I'll leave it up for a while for nostalgia's sake, but when the domain expires I won't be renewing it. I must focus my energy, from now on, on more lucrative online ventures. Yes, I am going into the spam business. Click here for more details on my new business plan.

I take calls like this one, or equally as dumbfounding, on a daily basis. And all I can say afterward is, "WTF?" This is why Clientcopia and Not Always Right are two of my favorite sites to read. Check them out for lots of entertaining stories of not just stupid customers, but stupid bosses, coworkers, friends, family members... you name it, there's probably a story about it.

My friend Melissa is always telling me about customers she has. She sells these tags for organizing your scrapbook ribbon....people call & email her to ask how many tags they will need. Hmmm...how much ribbon do you have?? Duh!

I had one that topped her a couple of weeks ago. It was from a kid whose father is on my waiting list for a corgi puppy. She emailed me because she lives with her mom, but she convinced her dad to get the puppy. She wanted me to tell her what her what days & for how long she should come see the puppy. I write alot of emails and then backspace them out...I mean, she was 8 for pete's sake! I advised her that was a decision that her parents needed to make but that my recommendation was for her to sign up for a weekly puppy kindergarten class to take it to so she could teach it manners.

Oh...and another stupid person story....the people who put an ad online to sell their "chiwawa & laso" mix puppy that they swear will not be larger than 4 lbs (WTF ever on both their spelling & size estimate) they want to sell because they are taking a vacation out of the country for 2 weeks and don't want to pay a petsitter. That one takes the cake for stupid.

Gimpstorming. It's a process by which a gimpy person, like myself, tries to devise his or her own way to do something they couldn't previously do. I just invented the word last night. I like it, and at least one other person likes it, so it is hereby declared a real word. By the power vested in me by... me. So there.

Last night's gimpstorming session involved my new Bluetooth headset. I spent an hour trying everything I could think of to get that thing up to my ear, and at the right angle to get it to hook over my ear and stay there. I even risked painful hair pulling by attempting to use my adhesive TeleStik reacher to do the job; it didn't work, and don't worry - my hair is intact. I used to have a wired headset which I was able to put on without much trouble at all, but no matter what I tried, I just couldn't make it happen with the Bluetooth. So, while gimpstorming has given me a lot of positive results in the past, including the ability to get my glasses on and off, put on makeup, type with three fingers, etc., this gimpstorming session was a complete failure.